Who Were the Babbitts and Bohemians?

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Big City Bohemian

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott
Fitzgerald

Although from a lower middle class family, F. Scott Fitzgerald gained
entry into the privileged world of the wealthy thanks to his compelling
personality, his gifts as a writer, and his military service. His
introduction to his future wife, Zelda Sayre — a southern socialite
whom he
met while stationed in Alabama — was the result of the breakdown of
rigid
social rules during the war.

Before meeting Zelda, Fitzgerald was rejected by the daughter of a
wealthy Midwestern family, and was only able to convince Zelda and her
family of his worthiness as a husband once he had published his first
novel. Such obstacles struck Fitzgerald as great injustices.

Throughout his largely autobiographical fiction, Fitzgerald presented
characters that, like himself, swam against the currents of social
convention and class structure. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a self-made gangster millionaire who has obscured
his humble origins by anglicizing his original German-immigrant name,
James Gatz, and has dedicated his life to persuading his former sweetheart
Daisy Buchanan to leave her husband, Tom. To win her over, Gatsby makes an
ostentatious show of his wealth, throwing lavish parties for crowds of
outrageous strangers, dressing in expensive, garish clothes, and driving a
flashy car. Temporarily wooed by Gatsby, Daisy loses her nerve to leave
her marriage as she sees telltale signs of Gatsby's lower class origins.

At the heart of Fitzgerald's social critique is Gatsby's inability to
understand that all of his efforts to gain entry into the upper class
actually distinguish his newly-made money from the established wealth of
Tom Buchanan. While Fitzgerald is critical of the modern tendency toward
Gatsby's kind of conspicuous consumption, he is indignant at the
perversion of Gatsby's pure-hearted desire for love; in the face of
entrenched but invisible social barriers, Gatsby is unfairly driven to
extremes of pointless waste and futile chivalry.

After writing The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald became increasingly critical of social inequality, even as his life of material excess and social tolerance was made possible by his newly-made wealth.

Original drawings of dancing couples
Norman Bel Geddes

These original Norman Bel Geddes drawings of dancing couples became interior decoration for the New York City nightclub, Palais Royal Cabaret.